CNN's Brooke Baldwin interviews Rep. Matt Caldwell and Sen. Kevin Rader, right, on the Florida House's vote not to debate a ban on assault rifles. Caldwell joined other Republicans in voting no. Screenshot from CNN

Students
from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were in audience in
Tallahassee on Tuesday, Feb. 20, to see a bill banning assault rifles
like the one that killed 17 of their classmates and teachers on
Valentine's Day be solidly voted down in a vote that was mostly along
party lines.

The
procedural vote that would have allowed House Bill 219 to move to the
House floor was soundly defeated, 71-36, with Republicans voting no
and Democrats voting yes. That includes the four representatives most
closely associated with Lee County, all of them Republicans – Rep.
Ray Rodrigues, R-76 which covers Sanibel and Captiva; Rep. Matt
Caldwell, R-79; Rep. Dane Eagle, R-77; and Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen,
R-78.

Except
for Caldwell, the local lawmakers have been quiet in the wake of the
vote. Not so Caldwell. He appeared on CNN Wednesday afternoon, Feb.
21, in a searing interview with CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin. This came
on the same day the Republican-controlled House declared pornography
to be a public health crisis.

“Listen,
I believe — we shouldn’t have weapons in the hands of deranged
individuals,” Caldwelltold
CNN,
before alluding to concerns he has that the process used by
Democratic lawmakers to try and reopen debate about an assault
weapons ban was a departure from precedent.

Baldwin
went after the North Fort Myers lawmaker.

“Stop
going back to your talking points sir, stop,” she said. “I don’t
think these people are asking for their guns to be taken away, they
are asking for you to consider a conversation — a consideration of
a ban of a weapon used in war, instead of having it in the hands of a
deranged individuals which we have witnessed in so many shootings in
this country. Why won’t you have that conversation?”

Caldwell
said that he “had that conversation with the Parkland students
today, we’re going to have that conversation in committee through
the process that we use for every bill that we’ve ever passed
through the House and off the floor. We’re not going to circumvent
that process for any bill.”

Caldwell
appeared on CNN along with Sen. Kevin J. Rader, D-29 which includes
parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties near Parkland, where the
mass murder occurred. Rader was staunchly in favor of taking the
automatic weapons bill to the House floor. He was quick to criticize
Caldwell and the rest of the Republicans.

HB
219, which would ban assault weapons, was introduced by Rep. Carlos
Guillermo, D-Orlando. It, like thousands of other bills, was never
scheduled for a hearing. But in the wake of the Parkland tragedy,
Democrats attempted to fast-track it. Tuesday's vote was not on the
bill itself. A yes vote called for the bill to be removed from
committees and go to the House floor for debate. A note vote was
against that.

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